Almost 18 months after the UK enforced its first Covid-19 lock­down, some organ­i­sa­tions are still using the dis­rup­tion of the pan­dem­ic as an excuse for pro­vid­ing a poor cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. 

Peo­ple were ini­tial­ly more accept­ing of the sub­op­ti­mal deliv­ery of even basic ser­vices, be it unan­swered tele­phone calls, infu­ri­at­ing delays for goods, or miss­ing out on vital med­ical appoint­ments. We were col­lec­tive­ly numbed by the trau­ma of the pan­dem­ic. Clap­ping on our doorsteps, we dili­gent­ly believed that “we’re all in this togeth­er”.

Grant­ed, the cri­sis will leave ugly scars on busi­ness­es large and small. It’s evi­dent now, though, with a sense of nor­mal­i­ty return­ing – in part thanks to the admin­is­tra­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 90 mil­lion vac­ci­na­tions – that con­sumers have had enough. They are quick to admon­ish com­pa­nies they sus­pect are tak­ing advan­tage of the sit­u­a­tion and read­i­ly call out below-aver­age cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. 

This cuts both ways. Recent research from ver­i­fied reviews plat­form Feefo indi­cates con­sumers are now 29% more like­ly to leave feed­back – good or bad – than before the pan­dem­ic.

The lat­est UK Cus­tomer Sat­is­fac­tion Index – a huge cross-sec­tor mea­sure­ment of cus­tomer ser­vice in the UK, with 10,000 con­sumers rat­ing a total of 45,000 cus­tomer expe­ri­ences – in July found that almost a quar­ter of respon­dents (24%) believe that some organ­i­sa­tions have used Covid-19 as an excuse for poor ser­vice. Specif­i­cal­ly, com­pa­nies that fail to com­mu­ni­cate with trans­paren­cy and authen­tic­i­ty – if at all – are more like­ly to spur the ire of con­sumers.

Doubling down on tech

“It has been well doc­u­ment­ed that busi­ness­es are fac­ing ongo­ing issues with stock, sup­ply chain and staff,” says Jo Cau­son, CEO of The Insti­tute of Cus­tomer Ser­vice, which pub­lish­es the UKCSI twice a year. “The issue is how the organ­i­sa­tion man­ages the over­all expe­ri­ence and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, help­ing the cus­tomer to nav­i­gate the prob­lem, indi­cat­ing when to expect deliv­ery, offer­ing alter­na­tives and being hon­est and explic­it upfront.”

More­over, cus­tomers expect con­sid­er­ably bet­ter expe­ri­ences com­pared to pre-pan­dem­ic times. Those organ­i­sa­tions that con­tin­ue to blame Covid for poor cus­tomer expe­ri­ence risk dam­ag­ing their rep­u­ta­tions irrepara­bly, while ced­ing mar­ket share to pro­gres­sive com­peti­tors who have seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to trans­form and upgrade their offer­ing by invest­ing in tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions.

“The past 18 months have exposed busi­ness­es’ strengths and weak­ness­es,” says Cau­son. “Those that have fared well have embraced new tech­nolo­gies, been proac­tive with their advice and sup­port, reached out and con­sid­ered the impli­ca­tions for their cus­tomers.” 

Brands that have suc­ceed­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and attract­ed and retained con­sumer loy­al­ty have “involved the cus­tomer in the design and deliv­ery” of new prod­ucts or ser­vices and pro­vid­ed greater “chan­nel choice”, she notes.

This chimes with Celine Maher, vice pres­i­dent of UK and Ire­land for cus­tomer ser­vice soft­ware com­pa­ny Zen­desk, whose recent research found rough­ly half of UK con­sumers will switch retail­ers after just one bad expe­ri­ence. For mul­ti­ple dis­ap­point­ments the num­ber rock­ets to 80%.

“Brands need to be able to meet their cus­tomers where they are by ensur­ing they are putting their needs first,” she says. One option is to take an omnichan­nel approach to cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, Maher adds. “This helps busi­ness­es to have mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions with cus­tomers on whichev­er chan­nel they feel most com­fort­able with, with­out need­ing to mon­i­tor across sev­er­al plat­forms.”

How­ev­er, “pro­vid­ing a fast and friend­ly ser­vice is no longer enough”, Maher warns. “In such a peri­od of uncer­tain­ty, cus­tomers are seek­ing proac­tiv­i­ty and empa­thy from busi­ness­es.”

A hybrid world

Ben­jamin Braun, chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer in Europe for elec­tron­ics giant Sam­sung, agrees that quick-think­ing brands have used the coro­n­avirus cri­sis to reeval­u­ate their pur­pose and cus­tomer expe­ri­ence offer­ing. They realised an ecom­merce pres­ence was imper­a­tive to sur­vive, and used cus­tomer data to build more per­son­alised expe­ri­ences and gen­er­ate loy­al­ty. 

“Almost overnight, a com­pa­ny web­site was more than just a shop win­dow – it became their only open shop,” Braun says. 

With this shift came an increased need for a bet­ter online expe­ri­ence, he adds.

“Cus­tomers expect­ed and demand­ed sup­port at every step of the online shop­ping jour­ney to replace the tra­di­tion­al in-per­son shop­ping sup­port. The rise of omnichan­nel has been phe­nom­e­nal and a real mark of suc­cess for many brands.”

Con­verse­ly, “even the most beloved brand can lose favour if their dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence isn’t up to scratch”, says Paul Rob­son, pres­i­dent of inter­na­tion­al at Adobe. We’re enter­ing a new era in expe­ri­ence, he adds, where dig­i­tal is the new bat­tle­ground.

“Sud­den­ly, we went from a world with dig­i­tal to a dig­i­tal-first world, and those brands that took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to invest in the tools that help them build deep­er direct rela­tion­ships with their cus­tomers will emerge from the pan­dem­ic far stronger than those that didn’t.”

As we ven­ture into this new epoch, which Braun calls “a hybrid world”, he believes that cus­tomi­sa­tion will only get stronger. 

“As con­sumers return to the high street, they crave an inte­grat­ed expe­ri­ence that merges the phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal domains. As a result, con­sumers expect a tai­lored ser­vice in-store while con­tin­u­ing to utilise new online ser­vices.”

Dou­bling down on tech and invest­ing in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is nec­es­sary for organ­i­sa­tions that seek to thrive in the com­ing months and years, says Braun. “The way brands can embrace cus­tomer needs is to put these first con­tin­u­ous­ly,” he advis­es. “Each shop, online or in-store, must put cus­tomer expe­ri­ence at the heart of its ser­vice. Data and insights must be lever­aged to bet­ter tai­lor every cus­tomer expe­ri­ence.”

The prospect of a dig­i­tal-phys­i­cal cus­tomer expe­ri­ence offer­ing is cer­tain­ly thrilling for con­sumers. Brands have no excuse – includ­ing blam­ing the coro­n­avirus cri­sis – not to invest in tech­nol­o­gy and engage with cus­tomers, wher­ev­er they are.

Raising the bar for in-person customer experience

Could improved in-per­son cus­tomer expe­ri­ences be the key to gen­er­at­ing – or rebuild­ing – con­sumer loy­al­ty for brands? 

After 18 months of take­aways and lux­u­ry home-restau­rant kits, for instance, will peo­ple still be like­ly to spend their mon­ey at a high-street chain? Or are they going to splash the cash in upmar­ket restau­rants, where the expe­ri­ence feels more spe­cial? Time – and data – will tell.

Away from the restau­rant indus­try, though, there’s no time to test and tweak; with the high street back open, and already under severe pres­sure from the ecom­merce boom, busi­ness­es have been forced to evolve. Sachin Jangam, part­ner for retail at Infos­ys Con­sult­ing, says that just-walk-out stores like Ama­zon Go – the first out­side the US opened in Eal­ing, west Lon­don, in March – are a “nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion of the changes we have already seen in retail”.

Tom Burch, man­ag­ing direc­tor of immer­sive expe­ri­ence stu­dio Pix­el Art­works, notes that Lego charges $15 for a unique, inter­ac­tive 20-minute expe­ri­ence at its flag­ship New York store. This so-called “retail­tain­ment” is ground­break­ing.

“That Lego can charge for this expe­ri­ence is proof of the shift in mar­ket demand,” says Burch. “I’m sure we’ll be see­ing such expe­ri­ences com­ing to major UK city cen­tres. Stores will begin to bet­ter delin­eate between what dig­i­tal can do and what only stores can deliv­er.” 

Phys­i­cal retail will con­tin­ue to shift towards ful­ly immer­sive brand play­grounds, says Burch.

“Retail stores might even have no phys­i­cal stock, but engage their cus­tomers with cre­ative and unique aug­ment­ed real­i­ty oppor­tu­ni­ties, with pur­chas­es deliv­ered to your door,” he adds. “Ulti­mate­ly, suc­cess­ful retail­ers under­stand that con­sumers want a shop­ping expe­ri­ence from stores, not just to buy stuff.”